More faces in places - 3

More faces in places - 2

More faces in places

I won't easily be able to update my blog for the next week or so, so I'm uploading a few sketches to fill in the days until I can start posting daily again. I'm going to post a few sketches inspired by photos posted over the last three months on Faces in Places.

Living room idea

We've been trying to figure out what to put up on our bare walls in our new place in Toronto (which isn't so new anymore). I was thinking that maybe it would be nice to just have something really simple, with some colors painted on a big surface. Here's one of many options which integrates some of the colors already in our living room, which I imagine looking kind of Rothko-esque when executed on canvas.

Quick sketch

I drew this quick sketch inspired by Harry Crane (played by Rich Sommer) last night while watching the third season finale of Mad Men.

Hm.

And a third drawing group sketch

Another drawing group sketch

Reclining nude

Sorry, loyal blog followers! I have been very behind in my posting over the holidays. Here are some make-up posts.

My mom attends a regular drawing group, which I attend when I'm visiting on days when she and her fellow sketchers are meeting. Usually, we all just take turns posing for the group (clothed!), but this time we had the treat of being able to draw a model.

Contemplative

The line drawing game - Part 2

Here's another line drawing started by my mom and finished by me.

The line drawing game - Part 1

I am feeling uninspired today, so I asked my mom to draw some lines on paper for me to use as a jumping off point for drawings. Here's the first one, with her initial lines and then my more complete drawing, which I will call "Flamingo Man."

Sketches from the Gardiner Museum

The Gardiner Musem houses a great ceramics collection in downtown Toronto. I took my sketchbook with me when I visited on Friday. Here are a few quick sketches in the Ancient Americas section. The various shapes of the vessels and sculptures are playful and beautiful. The cute little monkey sketch is of a vessel that really looks just like that!

An offering

Bank Robber

Clock revisited

I decided to mock up my clock creature series from October/November on an actual (digital) clockface. Here's how it would look as one piece.

Dress -> Apron

While I have a sewing machine, I'm not very handy with it. I'd like to try using it more. I was organizing a bunch of old clothes today and came across a dress I wore to Sean's college graduation in 2003. I haven't worn it since (and probably wouldn't fit into it anymore anyway), but I liked the cherry-print fabric, so I thought I'd try turning it into an apron. I did it in a shortcutty way, just keeping a lot of the original seams, so the results aren't perfect. It'll work, though! I have some extra fabric, so I may add pockets.

Tamales and more

Tonight for dinner I made use of the rest of the butternut squash from yesterday's post.

The squash was cubed and oven roasted, and ended up primarily in an Indian-flavored soup. Some of the remaining roasted cubes were eaten plain, and some ended up inside tamales. Tamales seem to take me far longer to assemble than they seem like they should, but I think they're worth the effort. Some had a black bean-based filling, some had a corn-based filling, and some (as mentioned above) contained squash. I also made some pico de gallo and served up some store-bought salsa. Some of the tamales contained Vegan Gourmet brand Monterey jack style cheese in addition to the fillings I listed above. Sean and I both agreed that the corn with "cheese" was our favorite flavor.

If any of you are interested in finding out what recipe I used, send me an email and I'll approximate it for you!

An experiment in home printmaking part 2

As a continuation of yesterday's post, I decided to try another shape, so I drew out and then carved a face into another piece of the squash, using a pencil and a paring knife.



The results were interesting - depending how much water I mixed in with the paint, there was an outline effect on some of the prints. Here are a couple I liked. In the top image, I used the snowflake piece to apply the lighter blue paint.

An experiment in home printmaking

I was cutting up a butternut squash tonight and it occurred to me that it would be fun to try to carve the end pieces to create some quick homemade prints.

The top even came with a little handle, which was almost like a rubber stamp.

I carved this snowflake type pattern, then painted over it with acrylic paint. I applied it to some construction paper (thanks, JY! It's from the batch you gave me when you moved away).


The results were interesting - it didn't turn out quite like I expected it would, but it was fun nonetheless.

Won Ton Soup

I made up this vegan won ton recipe, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. It wasn't chewy and meaty the way traditional won ton are, but the flavor was nice, and I liked the texture. The filling consisted of tofu, garlic, grated fresh ginger, shiitake and crimini mushrooms, savoy cabbage, celery, all fairly finely chopped and sauteed. I added some soy sauce and sesame oil for seasoning. I used round wrappers instead of the traditional square ones, since at our local grocery store I couldn't find any square ones that didn't contain eggs. I served the soup with scallions and matchsticked carrots (thanks for the suggestion, mom!)

The little packages turned out very pretty and uniform. The rounded edges made them look a bit more like tortellini. They reminded me of begonias, for some reason.

These were perfect on a cold night - I froze a large number, and will have some for lunch tomorrow.

My first snowman!

It was harder to make this than I thought it would be!

Road trip

Sketch of a chair

I sketched this Eames knockoff chair while waiting for Sean outside of a clothing store the other day. It was part of one of those fake living rooms created to showcase furniture, so people kept sitting in it and moving it while I was trying to draw. The nerve!

Giant Laureen - 3

My friend Laureen recently visited Toronto, and she recounted a conversation she had with a friend of hers about a specific kind of architecture. Certain buildings (like City Hall in San Francisco, for example) have gold-covered domes that resemble fancy foil-wrapped chocolates. She said if she were a giant visiting a city, she'd think that these domes were candy, and would eagerly attempt to unwrap them, only to be very disappointed to discover that they were inedible. I thought this was a hilarious image, so here it is for everyone else to enjoy (read the three last posts in order: excitement, confusion, anguish).

Giant Laureen - 2

Explanation tomorrow.

Giant Laureen - 1

I'll explain this later - it's panel one of a three part story.

Illustration Friday - Crunchy

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is crunchy.

The first thing that came to mind was a cookie. I sketched it out by hand and then created this image in Photoshop.

Illustration Friday - Entangled

This was the first image that sprang to mind when I saw the prompt word entangled. I first pictured the snakelike vines as having thorns, but it made the image a lot darker, so I didn't end up drawing them.

Reindog

Illustration Friday first draft - Entangled

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is "entangled." I sketched this out tonight, but would like to do some sort of colored version before submitting it.